“OK, but I think we need to use Net Meeting so you can try this on my system”.

At this point I give up explaining that the error message, “You do not have rights to run this service on the server” has nothing to do with how Internet Explorer runs on my laptop.

Of course it was kind of this person from tech support to dump my cache and clear out my cookies. I smiled as I watched them do that and remember the days when people who thought they had a little knowledge used to tell everyone that was the fix for all sorts of ills on the Internet.

I connect to their “system” using Net Meeting, watch them share their desktop (revealing their IE Window where they are Googling the error message and the chat window to a colleague asking for more help with this), connect and run up IE.

We both fall silent as the error re-appears.

“I cannot fix this - you need to contact another help desk for second line support”.

Something tells me I’ll be back in Net Meeting soon…